[Read Romans 8:28,29]
(29:07) "The sovereignty of God is an essential doctrine for every aspect of our lives. If I do not believe in the sovereignty of God, I cannot have a strong marriage. Now, I want us to look at some things - What is the purpose, sir, of your marriage? And if you can learn this, it will help you. It will give you contentment like you've never had it before. Because I want to tell you, much of what we call Christian teaching on marriage is wrong. It tells you that the goal of marriage is heaven on earth. The goal of marriage is this marital bless, this joy, this little piece of heaven. I'm here to tell you that is not true at all. Some of you are very discouraged in your marriage and the reason why is you've been told what the goal of marriage is, and they told you wrong, and when you didn't reach that goal, you think something's wrong with your marriage. 'Well, I'm supposed to have this marital bliss. My home's supposed to be like a little piece of heaven. It's not. Did I marry the wrong woman? Should I get out of this? What should I do?' They told you the wrong purpose for marriage. Here's what the Bible says is the purpose of marriage. Verse 29, 'For those who He foreknew, He also predestined. To be conformed to the image of His Son.' The number one purpose of marriage is that through marriage, you might become conformed to the image of God's Son with regard to His character. Put it this way - that you might learn to love like Jesus loved. And how did Jesus love? Jesus loved the loveless. So the purpose of your marriage, the sovereign purpose of God, is to the use that woman to do one thing - conform you to the image of God. That's it. Now, how does that work itself out? Well, first of all, lets look at the basis of most people's idea of marriage. They don't see it as a calling, but as the fulfillment of a desire. A young man comes to me, and he comes in the office, 'Brother Paul, I wanna marry this girl' And I say, why. And they say, 'Well, you know, she's just beautiful and uh, we can just talk, and I love her personality, and... we really get along together and... and just everthing, I mean, I just feel so great when I'm with her and...' And I stop him and I say, 'Let me just see if I understand what you're trying to tell me. You want to marry this woman because she fulfills all your selfish, self-centered desires? Is that what you're trying to tell me?' He says, 'No! That's not what I mean' I said, 'That's exactly what you said, young man. You want to marry her because she's beautiful. What happenes when she's not beautiful anymore, and what happens when someone more beautiful comes along - and she will? You want to be with her because you can talk. What happens when you can't talk to her, and what happens when you can talk to your secretary a lot better than you can your wife? You want to be with her because she meets all your need. What happens when your whole life is controlled by the fact that she has needs? How quick are you going to get out, boy?' You see why marriages go wrong? You get into them for all the wrong reasons."